In Italy Table of contents

Campland

Racial Segregation of Roma

in Italy

Table of contents
Acknowledgments

1. Introduction

2. Roma in Italy: Racial Segregation

3. Abuses by Police and Judicial Authorities

3.1. Abusive Raids, Evictions and Arbitrary Destruction of Property

3.2. Abusive Use of Firearms

3.3. Torture and Physical Abuse

3.4. Discriminatory Targeting of Roma by Police

3.5. Theft by Authorities

3.6. Confiscation of Papers

3.7. Sexually Abusive Searches of Women

3.8. Failure to Provide Proper Interpretation to Foreign Roma Accused of Criminal Acts

3.9. Failure to Provide Information Concerning Detained Roma

3.10. Threats and Police Violations of the Right of Assembly

3.11. Inadequate Sanction for Officers Who Abuse Their Authority

3.12. Discrimination by Judicial Authorities

3.13. The Follow-up: Expelling Roma from Italy

Roma Rights Photographs from Italy

4. Violence Against Roma by Non-State Actors

5. Discriminatory Treatment of Roma in the Provision of Public Services

6. Denying Roma the Right to Education in Italy

7. The Right to Employment

8. Conclusion: Racial Discrimination

9. A Just Settlement: Recommendations of the European Roma Rights Center to the Government of Italy

10. Bibliography

11. Appendix: “From Bad to Horrific in a Gypsy Ghetto” by Kathryn D. Carlisle

12. Summary in Romani: E Europako Romano Centro vash e Romenge Chachipena Del Raporto pala e Romengi Situacija andi Italija

Acknowledgements

This report was produced by the staff of the ERRC. Most of the work was done by Claude Cahn, Kathryn D. Carlisle, Claudia Fregoli, Deyan Kiuranov and Dimitrina Petrova. The following ERRC employees, consultants, interns and volunteers also contributed significantly: István Fenyvesi, James Goldston, Anne Lucas, Gioia Maiellano, Tatjana Peric, Branimir Pleše, Hannah Slavik and Veronika Leila Szente. The ERRC is additionally grateful to the following persons, without whose invaluable assistance publication of the report would have been impossible: Piero Brunello, Giovanna Boursier, Stefano Casu, Carlo Chiaramonte, Piero Collacicchi, Nerys Lee, Stefano Montesi, Mariangela Prestipino and Daniell Soustre de Condat.

“I think [this dream of mine] summarises the meaning of my entire life.

I am the head of an airport. […] A big plane has touched down and in my capacity of airport boss I go to passport control.

All passengers from the plane are there before me, waiting in line with their passports. I suddenly behold a strange figure: an ancient Chinese, dressed in rags yet regal, emitting a horrible stink. He is waiting to enter.

He stands in confrontation, uttering not a word. He doesn’t even raise his eyes, totally absorbed in himself.

I cast a look at the plate on my desk, certifying that I am the one in charge. But I don’t know what to do. I am afraid to let him enter, as he is so different from everybody and I don’t understand him. I am terribly afraid that if I let him in, he will upset my conventional life. I start to apologise then, lying and laying bare my own weakness.

I am lying as children lie. I can’t bring myself to accept responsibility. I say:

‘You see I am not authorised. Actually, it isn’t I who is the boss. I’ve got to ask the others.’

And my head hangs with shame. I then add:

‘Wait a moment, I‘ll be back.’

I go away to make a decision that I am never to make. I go on vacillating and all the time I wonder whether he’ll be there still when I return. But the worst is that I am not sure whether I am more afraid to find him there, or find him gone.

Thirty years since, I am still pondering this dream. I fully understand that something had been wrong with my nose and not with his smell; yet I can not bring myself to go back and let him enter, nor learn whether he is there still, waiting.”
Federico Fellini from I, Fellini

1. Introduction: Anti-Gypsyism in Italy

On May 17, 2000, Mr Paolo Frigerio, mayor of the town of Cernusco sul Naviglio in the province of Milan, made a public announcement. According to print press and televised media reports, he told journalists and civilians that he would pay five million Italian lire (approximately 2500 euros) of public local government money to any farmer willing to spray manure on an area where a group of Roma were temporarily residing in camper vans in the town. According to the mayor, “a bath of manure is the only way to even the score with the Gypsies, an act of justice equal to the manure they leave us when they move on.”¹

Mayor Frigerio has not been alone in his use of anti-Romani hate speech. The Lega Nord (Northern League), a prominent political party in Italy, frequently uses racist and anti-Romani language in public statements. Mr Umberto Bossi, leader of the Lega Nord, distributed fliers during the campaign for recent regional elections that stated, “If you don’t want Gypsies, Moroccans and delinquents in your house, be the master of your own home in a livable city and vote Lega Nord.”² In regional elections on April 16, 2000, the centre-right and extreme right, including the Lega Nord, garnered a majority.³ Campaigning – especially campaigning by right-wing parties – featured explicitly anti-Romani messages. For example, in the town of Voghera, centre-right candidate Aurelio Torriani distributed fliers intended to discredit centre-left candidate Antonella Dagradi with the slogan: “The Gypsies will certainly vote for Antonella Dagradi. Do you want to do the same?” And Lega Nord supporters chanted what they termed the “Gypsy Prayer” at a recent rally led by Lega Nord Member of Parliament Mario Borghezio in the same town.⁴ The “Gypsy Prayer” goes as follows: “Give us a million a month, the city doesn’t have other expenses, put us at the top of the list for a house, because we are nomads, but we are sticking around; but we wouldn’t want to be gassed by angry Voghero inhabitants.”⁵ The text of the “Gypsy Prayer” was distributed on fliers.⁶
Inflammatory statements by Italian politicians fall on fertile ground. Recent surveys indicate that Italians dislike and fear Roma, often on the basis of little or no experience with them. In a recent report on the fears of children by the official regional institution Instituto Ricerche Economico-Sociali del Piemonte, a survey of 1521 children aged 8 and 9 revealed that thirty-six percent of respondents who fear open spaces (60% of all children), stated that they did so because of “drug addicts, Gypsies and Morrocans”.⁷ Eighty-two percent of respondents stated that their fears were based on information that they had received from their parents and teachers or otherwise indirectly.⁸ Similarly, in October 1999, the Documentation Centre for Solidarity with Nomads of the Sant’Egidio religious community conducted a survey of approximately two hundred people in the Lombardy region, including the question, “Are you in favour of the authorised installation of camps for nomads in the region?” Approximately seventy percent of respondents were opposed. Grounds provided by respondents for disapproval included, “They steal”; “They are dirty”; “They steal children”; and “I don’t know.”⁹
Anti-Romani stereotypes are also widespread in Italy today.¹⁰ A popular evening television gameshow, “La Zingara” has been broadcast since the mid-1990s. The “Zingara” is a fortune-telling woman who conducts the program by turning over cards and asking callers to fill in the second half of an Italian proverb. Successful answers are rewarded with money. There is a moon in the background of the set and a rustic-looking caravan behind. The “Zingara” wears colourful clothing and gigantic earrings. A mysterious laugh begins and ends each episode. In Italian lore, Roma are rumoured to have made the nails used to crucify Jesus, steal children and generally wreak havoc and evil.¹¹¹ In Italian, there are many anti-Romani or stereotyping idioms. For example, in the dialect of Rome, it is common to say, “sei proprio uno zingaro” (“you’re such a Gypsy”), to accuse someone of stealing, lying or generally being untrustworthy. In various regional dialects, telling someone that they “dress like a Gypsy” is a way of saying they need to wash or that they dress poorly. Ninety-two of 1521 children taking part in the survey by the Instituto Ricerche Economico-Sociali del Piedmonte stated, without being prompted, that they feared Gypsies because “they steal children”.¹²
Underpinning the Italian government’s approach to Roma is the conviction that Roma are “nomads”. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, ten out of the twenty regions in Italy adopted laws aimed at the “protection of nomadic cultures” through the construction of segregated camps.¹³ This project rendered official the perception that all Roma and Sinti are nomads and can only survive in camps, isolated from Italian society.¹⁴ As a result, many Roma have effectively been forced to live out the romantic and repressive projections of Italians; Italian authorities assert that their desire to live in flats or houses is inauthentic and relegate them to “camps for nomads”. Twenty-year-old Ms M.D. is a member of an Italian Sinti family which lives in caravans and travels, spending the winter in Italy and the summer in Germany and Switzerland; but when asked by the ERRC whether she would like to go on living like that, she replied: “No, we want houses and a life like yours.”¹⁵ This statement and numerous similar ones however fall on deaf ears when presented to Italian authorities and non-Romani Italians alike. For example, an Italian delegate told the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in Geneva in March 1999 that Roma, as natural nomads, “preferred to stay in their camps.”¹⁶ The “nomad” theory is used time and again as the justification for excluding Roma from the responsibility for decision-making normally afforded adult human beings.
The description of Roma as “nomads” is not only used in the service of segregating and infantilising Roma, but also in order to reinforce the popular idea that Roma are not Italians and do not belong in Italy. The overweening anthropological sensitivity of Italian authorities runs only negatively, when it is a question of establishing Roma as an integral part of Italian society. As such, government offices addressing issues related to Roma are called “Offices of Nomad Affairs” and fall under the competence of the Department of Immigration. Similarly, the existence of local administrative offices for “Nomads and Non-Europeans” indicates that Roma are commonly perceived as foreigners and vagrants in the eyes of Italian authorities. These offices are responsible also for local, non-immigrant Italian Roma and Sinti.
In response to a steady stream of reports of anti-Romani hate speech by prominent Italian politicians, as well as disturbing reports of frequent police violence against Roma by Italian police and other security forces, the ERRC initiated research in Italy in 1997 with a brief exploratory field mission. From 1998 to the present, the ERRC has conducted regular monitoring in Italy, with a monitor in the North and a monitor in Rome, also competent for southern Italy. In January 1999, the ERRC conducted an extensive field mission in Italy. Additionally, the ERRC maintains regular contact with various Italian non-governmental organisations working in the field of Roma Rights. This report is based on these manifold research efforts.
The chapters of this report are organised as follows: after the introduction, ERRC presents a brief history of Roma in Italy, a history which has led to racial segregation today. Next, documentation of abuses by Italian authorities is presented, including extreme abuses such as killings of Roma by police officers. The ERRC notes widespread destruction of Romani property and homes by authorities and documents recent heightened actions by Italian authorities to expel Roma from Italy. The fourth chapter addresses instances of abuse by non-state actors, as well as discrimination, especially in access to public services. Next, the report examines abuses of Roma rights in the areas of education and employment. By way of conclusion, the ERRC examines Italian government efforts in the fight against racial discrimination, especially in the wake of strongly worded criticism in March 1999 by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). The report concludes with specific recommendations to the Italian government to improve its record in the area of Roma rights.
2. Roma in Italy: Racial Segregation

Roma first arrived in Italy from the east having originally left India, probably around the 10th century AD, and entered Europe through the Balkans toward the end of the 14th century.¹⁷ The first record of Roma on the territory of Italy dates back to the beginning of the 1400s.¹⁸ The first Roma to arrive in Italy were unspecified “Cingani” – Gypsies, in the words of the chroniclers of the day – who appeared in the Alps in the north and in the south, probably arriving via the Adriatic sea from Greece.¹⁹ Documentation indicates that Romani communities were already established in the Abruzzo and Molise regions in south-central Italy by the 1400s.²⁰ Found along with some of the first records of the arrival of Roma in Italy, however, are the first records of expulsion and persecution, for example, decrees stating that it was not a crime to “burn or kill Gypsies,” such as the one issued by Maximilian I in 1500.²¹

The idea of the “dirty Gypsy” has historically been embedded in the Italian conception of Roma. In the past, in some areas of Italy, cholera was called “lo Zingaro” or “the Gypsy”.²² Into the 20th century, Roma have been associated with disease in Italy; on August 21, 1910, the Ministry of the Interior distributed a circular decree ordering the “surveillance, isolation and disinfecting of Gypsies in the Kingdom due to the suspicion that the outbreak of cholera in the Province of Bari was caused by their arrival.”²³ Following the decree, a group of Roma were disinfected and expelled from Italy.²⁴
Discrimination has burdened Roma throughout their history in Italy. In Bologna, during the plague of 1630, ill Roma were not allowed into the hospitals under a local government decree.²⁵ In 1663, a decree in Milan allowed for the “murder of Gypsies and the stripping of personal goods (from their cadavers) without punishment.”²⁶ Hostility towards Roma became significantly more programmatic at the end of the 19th and in the early 20th centuries. Common suspicions and fears were exploited by anthropologists who articulated an image of the dangerous nomad, disrespectful of frontiers, lazy and thieving, as opposed to the good Italian, purported to be a patriotic and hardworking home-body.²⁷ Psychiatrists and jurists added their weight to this picture. For example, Lombroso, a famous and widely-read criminologist, wrote, “Gypsies are a race of criminals, who easily murder for money.”²⁸ Capobianco, an influential judge, wrote in 1914 urging severe measures to control “the Gypsy”, adding that, “he is more like an animal than a man, full of primitive and ferocious instincts.”²⁹
After World War I, immigration brought another 7,000 Roma to Italy. In the early years following their arrival in Italy, the economic life of these groups primarily centred around door-to-door services such as metal repair and polishing.³⁰ Hundreds of thousands of Roma perished during the Holocaust. Italian 1938 race laws did not include Roma on the same level as Jews, but many Roma and Sinti were interned during the war in several concentration camps in various parts of Italy, where they suffered from very harsh living conditions.³¹ Although Roma in Italy were spared the full intensity of the genocide,³² many Roma today in Italy are direct descendants of victims and the memory of the Holocaust continues to weigh on the whole Romani community. Approximately 40,000 Roma came to Italy during the Italian economic boom of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.³³ More recently, the troubles in the former Yugoslavia have brought additional Roma to Italy. The arrival of newcomers reified the identity of “Sinti Rom”³⁴ in Italy – especially northern Italy, as the original and native Italian Roma.
There are no accurate figures on the current number of Roma in Italy. One official count puts the number at 130,000, but the methodology used to determine this figure is not known to the ERRC.³⁵ In 1995, the London-based non-governmental organisation Minority Rights Group put the figure at 90,000-110,000.³⁶ Local non-governmental organisations estimate that there are presently 60,000-90,000 Italian Romani citizens and 45,000-70,000 Roma born outside Italy or born in Italy to immigrant parents, mainly from Eastern Europe, especially the former Yugoslavia.³⁷ When prominent Italian politicians speak of cracking down on immigration,³⁸ they are playing on a link in the popular imagination between immigrants and Roma. In the minds of many Italians, Roma are the archetype of unwanted “criminal” immigrants. This sentiment reached fever pitch when approximately ten thousand Romani refugees arrived in Italy during summer 1999, after being ethnically cleansed from Kosovo by ethnic Albanians following the end of the NATO bombing and the Yugoslav military action in the province.³⁹
Most Roma in Italy live in a state of separation from mainstream Italian society. For over half of Italy’s Roma, this separation is physical: Roma live segregated from non-Romani Italians. In some areas, Roma are excluded and ignored, living in filthy and squalid conditions, without basic infrastructure. These Roma “squat” abandoned buildings or set up camps along the road or in open spaces. They can be evicted at any moment, and frequently are. A racist society pushes these Roma to the margins and hinders their integration. Their settlements are often called “illegal” or “unauthorised”. Where Italian authorities have expended energy and resources on Roma, these efforts have in most cases not been aimed at integrating Roma into Italian society. Quite the opposite: as the third millennium dawns, Italy is the only country in Europe to boast a systematic, publicly organised and sponsored network of ghettos aimed at depriving Roma of full participation in, or even contact or interaction with, Italian life. These Roma, in Italian parlance, live in “camps” or squalid ghettos that are “authorised”.⁴⁰
Camps vary in size from a dozen persons – for example, one of the unauthorised camps in Via Castiglia, Milan – to more than fifteen hundred persons, for example, the massive unauthorised Casilino 700 camp in Rome.⁴¹ About 95% of the Roma in camps visited by the ERRC were immigrants or the children of immigrants; the rest were itinerant Italian Roma or Sinti.⁴² Most of the immigrant Roma (around 70%) came from ex-Yugoslavia. Another sizeable group of immigrants came from Romania (about 25%), with the remaining 5% composed of small groups and individuals from other countries. The smaller camps, home to only fifteen to thirty people, are generally unauthorised. Authorised camps tend to comprise at least one hundred persons.
Camps tend either to comprise Roma of one nationality or, where camps are large, to be divided into sections by place of origin with, for example, “Bosnian”, “Kosovar”, “Serbian” and “Romanian” sections. In some cases, camps are in close proximity to official or unofficial housing arrangements for non-Romani immigrant groups. Mr I.B. from the unauthorised camp in the industrial zone of Eboli-Battipaglia showed the ERRC a dilapidated mill building about fifty metres from the camp. He said that Morrocans were living there.⁴³ Many Italian Roma also live in camps: at the time of the ERRC visit in January 1999, there were between 100 and 150 persons living in trailers in the camp at Via Vallenari, Mestre. Another group of about the same size lived, also in trailers, at the Bella Sofia unauthorised camp in Palermo.
Many of the Roma the ERRC met during field research were born in Italy to foreign parents. Of the foreign Roma born outside Italy, most had been in Italy continuously for the past thirty years. However, since Italian authorities often refuse to issue residence permits to Roma,⁴⁴ immigrant Roma often have no official proof of how long they have been in Italy. Thirty-two-year-old Mr V.M from the Secondigliano camp, Naples, said that although his family and he had lived in the camp for seven years at the time of the interview, he had no way of proving that fact.⁴⁵ Forty-five-year-old Mr O.O. similarly told the ERRC that he had been in Italy for seven years, yet had not been issued any permanent document. Mr O.O. went to the municipality, and was reportedly told by a counselor responsible for immigrants there, “There will never be a place in Milan for you Muslim Roma.”⁴⁶
Some of the Roma with whom the ERRC spoke had managed to secure residence permits. This was especially true of Roma who had been in Italy for longer periods of time. Individuals who had managed to legalise their status had temporary residence permits valid for various – but exclusively short – periods of time. The residence permit of longest validity that the ERRC came across belonged to Mr F.S., who had arrived in Italy thirty years before and had been there ever since; he had a two-year residence permit. The overwhelming majority of residence permits shown to the ERRC were valid between one month and six months. Traditional and common law marriages are often not recognised by Italian authorities, so many Romani families remain illegal even if a male head of the family obtains a residence permit. The only Roma born in another country or Roma born in Italy to foreign-born parents who were in possession of Italian citizenship with whom the ERRC met were those lucky enough to live in one of the handful of camps with activist and legally competent NGOs.⁴⁷
Most authorised camps are surrounded by a wall or fence. In many instances, a regime of gatekeepers render authorised camps into places of restricted access, effectively violating the freedom of movement of Roma living there as well as that of visitors.⁴⁸ Thirty-year-old Mr T.C., a non-Romani gatekeeper at one authorised camp told the ERRC that there were many “restricted” persons in the camp, meaning that their leaving the camp was forbidden partly or fully. People in authorised camps are under permanent control, while people in unauthorised camps are subjected to control at intervals. In all but one camp – the Zelarino Camp in Mestre – the ERRC witnessed that relations between the administration of the camp and the inmates appeared to be founded on mutual distrust and fear.
The ERRC did not see any camps located far from towns or villages. Most camps are on the outskirts of towns and cities, while others are in the middle of towns. In the centres of towns and cities, one can find both authorised and unauthorised camps. For example, the authorised Tor de’ Cenci and Casilino 900 camps in Rome, and the unauthorised Casilino 700 in Rome and the unauthorised camps in Via Castiglia in Milan are all downtown camps.
There is not always a significant difference between the quality of life in an authorised and an unauthorised camp. Roma in camps live in makeshift barracks, containers and old trailers. Rarely, in authorised camps, there are some standardised barracks (e.g. in the Muratella camp in Rome) or some tents provided by municipal authorities. Newcomers are often initially sheltered by inhabitants of longer standing until they can buy a caravan or build a shack. In about one-third of the camps visited by the ERRC, the ground was covered by asphalt – extremely hot in summer –, concrete slabs or small stones. In the remaining camps, the ground was just dirt which turned to mud with each rain and produced huge clouds of dust in summer. In the Casilino 700 camp in Rome, many shacks had been built on poles to keep the floor above the mud. In about half the camps there are a few trees; the rest are devoid of anything green. Some of the larger, authorised camps are reportedly rife with drugs. For example, the ERRC was told in January 1999 that of around 350 inmates of the authorised Olmatello camp in Florence, about fifty persons were currently in detention or in prison for drug dealing.
In about three-quarters of the camps there is running water and electricity. Water is either supplied free-of-charge by the municipality in some authorised camps, or at a subsidised rate, or at full rate, or stolen by the local Roma. The same applies for electricity. Both water and electricity are usually stolen in unauthorised camps, but there are exceptions. For example, in an unauthorised camp in Florence, local authorities supplied water and even built showers. However, they erected the eight cold water showers right in the open, on a concrete platform in the middle of the camp. The ERRC team was told with laughter that of course no one would make a show of showering with everybody looking. The showers were being used for washing clothing at the time of the ERRC visit.
In the authorised camp of Poderaccio, on the outskirts of Florence, at the time of ERRC field research in January 1999, authorities provided electricity. However, the municipality did not install electricity metres for each family, but rather installed electricity metres for every eight families. Nobody could tell how much energy each family consumed, or what portion of the common bill each family was supposed to pay.
The ERRC is not aware of a single camp with an adequate sewage system. Of the thirty camps visited by the ERRC, only one – the authorised camp in Via Rismondo, Padua – had a sewage system approaching adequacy, with a toilet cabin for every two families. Some of the camps had movable chemical toilet cabinets. The chemical toilet is a plastic box like a telephone booth, to be used by one person at a time. In all camps the ERRC visited there were fewer than needed. Some cases are drastic: in Casilino 700, Rome, about a dozen chemical toilets served around 1500 Roma. Chemical toilets need close and periodic care by professional personnel. Where this is missing, they become useless and ugly monuments to negligent municipal bureaucracy. To passers-by, they confirm the prejudice that Roma smell and are dirty. In the authorised Favorita camp in Palermo, no toilet facilities existed at all in a camp of about 1000 people at the time of the ERRC visit.
Authorities effectively block efforts of the Roma themselves to improve their housing. Authorities often do not permit Roma in authorised camps to build houses. The ERRC was told on several occasions by Roma that they had been trying to acquire guarantees from local authorities that if they did build a house in the camp, it would not be demolished by officials. Alternately, some Roma with whom the ERRC spoke had requested designation of an appropriate housing site outside the camp, so that they could build there. The ERRC is not aware of any cases in which such permission was granted. Building without a permit in Italy can have serious legal consequences: Article 7 and 20 of the February 28, 1985 law number 47 elaborating Article 17(b) of the 28 January 1977 law number 10 authorises arrest and imprisonment for up to two years and a fine of 10,000,000 to 100,000,000 lira (approximately 5000-50,000 euros) for construction without a permit.
The story of Mr F.S. from the Casilino 900 camp in Rome is particularly illustrative. Mr F.S. is a 52-year old Romani man originally from the former Yugoslavia. He came to Italy in 1969 and as of January 1999, had been in Italy ever since. He and his family built themselves a shack in the Casilino camp in Rome. He pointed out to the ERRC team where the shack used to stand; it is a place outside of the camp now, at the foot of a hill, about a hundred and fifty meters away from the present camp. “My father died here in the camp. We’ve been here for thirty years and still not able to get a house. In 1985 the authorities destroyed the old camp at the foot of the hill.” Mr F.S. said that at the time there were non-Roma from Calabria and Sicily also living there in makeshift houses. “Now they live there,” he told the ERRC, pointing to several apartment buildings about half a kilometre away: “the state gave them housing, as it is their state. And as we don’t have a state, we can’t get a house.” Mr F.S. said that he had time and again approached the municipality, requesting permission to build a house, but officials from the municipality responded invariably that they would not grant him permission, and that if he built one anyway, such a structure would be illegal. They would, they said, have to destroy it.⁴⁹

3. Abuses by Police and Judicial Authorities

Anti-foreigner sentiment and intense hostility towards Roma, accreting to the focal points of ghettoised Romani camps throughout Italy, has in recent years found visceral expression in abusive raids conducted by police and other authorities. Police misconduct in Italy ranges from verbal abuse to serious ill treatment and shootings. During field missions in 1997 and 1999, and in the course of regular monitoring beginning in 1998 and continuing to the present, the ERRC has documented numerous cases of police abuse. It is nearly certain that, between the time this report was sent to press and the time that it is published, further abuses of the rights of Roma by authorities will have occurred in Italy.